Gunfire and mortar shells rocked Somalia's capital Sunday as plans for a peace and reconciliation conference were delayed for a second time. Mogadishu has seen sporadic violence in recent days, ending more than a week's lull in fighting between insurgents and Ethiopian-backed government troops. Four days of bloodshed that started in late March killed hundreds of people and possibly more than 1,000 in the worst fighting in 15 years. On Sunday, the chairman of a committee planning a peace and reconciliation conference said the meeting would be held June 14. The conference had been scheduled for this month, then postponed to May because of the violence. "We are trying to reconcile the Somali clans and we are waiting for international support," Ali Mahdi Mohmamed said Sunday. ... http://abcnews.go.com

A 27-year-old man is accused of setting an early morning fire that killed five children and left a firefighter and three others injured, police said Sunday.One relative of the victims said the fire may have stemmed from a family dispute.Zachary Q. Meeks of Quincy was charged Sunday with five counts of first-degree murder, one count of aggravated arson and one count of arson, police said. He was arrested after being questioned about the 3 a.m. fire in this Mississippi River community.Rescuers responded to a house engulfed in flames and later discovered the five bodies inside, authorities said."When they arrived, the house was pretty heavily involved in flames," said Keith Frank, an assistant fire chief.The four boys and one girl were likely family members, said Adams County coroner Gary Hamilton. Their bodies were found on the house's second story, he said....http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,266181,00.html

Sudan has signed an agreement with the United Nations and the African Union (AU) on the deployment of African and U.N. forces in Darfur, the official Saudi Press Agency reported on Sunday. Saudi Arabia's "King Abdullah received a telephone call from Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in which he informed him that the Sudanese government has signed an agreement with the United Nation and the AU that determines the duties and role of the African and U.N. forces in the Darfur region," SPA said. The agency did not give further details about the agreement, which it said was brokered in Riyadh during the Arab summit held in the Saudi capital late in March. The United Nations was nearing a deal with Khartoum to add 3,000 U.N. military personnel and equipment to the AU force under a so-called heavy support package but Sudan had objected to the U.N. fielding six attack helicopters....http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070416/ts_nm/sudan_darfur_deal_dc

Gunfire and mortar shells rocked Somalia's capital Sunday as plans for a peace and reconciliation conference were delayed for a second time. Mogadishu has seen sporadic violence in recent days, ending more than a week's lull in fighting between insurgents and Ethiopian-backed government troops. Four days of bloodshed that started in late March killed hundreds of people and possibly more than 1,000 in the worst fighting in 15 years. On Sunday, the chairman of a committee planning a peace and reconciliation conference said the meeting would be held June 14. The conference had been scheduled for this month, then postponed to May because of the violence. "We are trying to reconcile the Somali clans and we are waiting for international support," Ali Mahdi Mohmamed said Sunday. ...http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=3044128

A stone's throw from a pristine beach where foreign tourists sip caipirinhas, relatives wait at a morgue to recover the bodies of nearly two dozen people, the aftermath of a typical weekend of violence in the port city of Recife. With around 80 homicides a year for every 100,000 people -- twice as many as the worst cities in the United States -- Recife, in northeastern Brazil, is the bloodiest city in a country that is going through a particularly bloody period. Dozens of high-profile killings over the past year in Recife and around Brazil have made violence a prime public concern, and the one that President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is most often criticized for. Ninety-one percent of Brazilians say violence has increased in recent years, according to a poll in April. Experts say the main culprit is the huge gap between rich and poor. Brazil ranks 10th among countries with the worst income distribution, according to the 2006 UN Development Report....http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070416/ts_nm/brazil_violence_dc

Americans' knowledge of national and international affairs has changed little in two decades despite the emergence of 24-hour cable news and the Internet as major news sources. People surveyed in February were slightly less able than those polled in 1989 to name the vice president, their state's governor and the president of Russia but slightly more able to answer other questions correctly about national politics, according to a poll released Sunday by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. Of the 1,502 adults survey in February, 69 percent correctly answered Dick Cheney when asked who was the vice president, compared with 74 percent who correctly responded Dan Quayle when the same question was asked in 1989. Two-thirds correctly named their state's governor in February compared with three-fourths who got that right in 1989. Readers of LewisNews who have been following the news here the past 11 years are more informed. ...http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=3044121